A blog dedicated to exploring the practice of law before the internet. Heck, before good interstate highways for that matter.

Monday, November 7, 2016

The November 1916 Election in Wyoming

Today is the centennial of the 1916 General Election, and of course the eve of the 2016 General Election. We have the advantage of the 1916 one, of course, in that we know how things turned out. Something those voters who went to the polls in 1916 did not, both in the near term, and the short term.

Woodrow Wilson took Wyoming's electoral vote that year (1912), receiving 42% of
the popular vote. The combined Taft and Roosevelt vote surpassed that,
with Roosevelt taking 27% of the vote, a greater share than that taken
by Taft. Socialist Eugene Debs came in with an amazing 6%. Given this,
it is not possible to simply write off the election to the split in the
Republican Party that year. The combined Debs and Roosevelt vote made
up a whopping 33% of the Wyoming electorate that was expressing support
for a radical change in direction in national politics. Wilson's 42%
was not insignificant either. Even simply writing off the fact that any
Democratic candidate of that era would have received at least 1/3d of
the state vote, a surprising number of Wyomingites seemed to be
espousing the progressive, and even radical, ideas that were the
combined platforms of the Progressive and Democratic parties. Even
accepting that the Democrats had come at this development through the
Populist, which was reflected in their earlier nomination of Bryan, and
in Wilson's appointing him to the position of Secretary of State, it
seems something was afoot.

Former head of Princeton and Governor of New Jersey, President Woodrow Wilson.

Indeed, in the same year, the sitting Governor, elected in 1910, Joseph
M. Carey, left the Republican Party and joined the Progressive Party.
Carey, like most (but not all) of the Progressives, including Theodore
Roosevelt himself, would eventually return to the Republican Party, but
it's at least interesting to note that a sitting, elected, Wyoming
Governor publicly abandoned his party to join a third party. A think
like that would simply be inconceivable today.

Governor Carey just months prior to his defection to the Progressive
Party, with a bored looking Dorothy Knight, the daughter of a Wyoming
Supreme Court justice, at the launch of the USS Wyoming.

This tread, moreover, continued. Carey's successor in the Governor's
office was not a member of the Republican Party, nor a Progressive, but
Democrat John B. Kendrick. Kendrick did not remain in that office for
long, however, as he was elected to the United States Senate by the
electorate, now able to directly elect Senators, in 1916, a position he
held until his death in 1933. His companion in the Senate for most of
that time, however, was very long serving Republican Senator Francis E.
Warren (who of course had also been a Governor) who served until his
death in 1929, when he was replaced by Republican Senator Patrick
Sullivan.

Senator John B. Kendrick.

A slow shift began to take place in the early teens, however. In the
1916 Presidential election the state again supported Wilson, giving him
49% of the vote. 3% supported Socialist candidate Allan Benson, and
those votes would certainly have gone for a any more left wing candidate
than the Republican Charles Hughes, but a period in which Wyoming
leaned Republican but which would swing towards Democrats was emerging.
The state went very strongly for Warren Harding in 1920 (60%) and for
Coolidge in 1924. In 1924, however, the Democrats fared very poorly in
the Presidential election, with the Progressive Candidate Robert
LaFollette, who had taken up where Theodore Roosevelt would not have
wanted to leave off for him, and then some, receiving 31% of the Wyoming
vote. David, the Democrat, came in a poor third, showing that a strong
Progressive streak remained in the Wyoming electorate at that time.
That election saw the nation nearly completely go for Coolidge except in
the South, which went for Davis. Geographically it was one of the most
divided elections in the nation's history.

I'll be posting some newspapers from 1916 that give a flavor of the election that year (and indeed already have) but I thought here I might look at a couple of things a little more in depth. And, as I noted above, there were clearly some long term trends at work that would continue to play out for the next several years. Robert LaFollette taking 31% of the Wyoming vote in 1924? Amazing, in that LaFollette was a real socialist, not a social democrat like this year's Bernie Sanders.

Anyway, let's look at the 1916 election.

Who was voting?

Well, for one thing, in Wyoming, women were voting, as they had since statehood. This wasn't so in all of the United States, however. Oddly, in a large part of the East, together with the South, women did not have the franchise and would not until the 19th Amendment became law in 1920. In western states, however, they largely had the franchise, which would probably not be what many people would guess today. Wyoming's state nickname, The Equality State, stems from it having always had the franchise for women.

Indians, however, could not vote in much of the United States as they were not citizens even in their own land. American Indians would not become uniformly citizens until the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924. That seems simply stunning, but that was the case. The concept of being born within the United States automatically making a person a citizen did not apply to them if the sovereignty of their tribes was still recognized. Indian tribes retain sovereignty today, but all the native born, of any race, are of course regarded as citizens now. I don't know that they didn't have the franchise in Wyoming, but I strongly suspect that they did not as the two tribes that resided in Wyoming, and still do, were part of the western reservation system, which would have made their having had citizenship up until 1924 highly unlikely.

Other minorities, I'd note, did have unrestricted access to the ballot in Wyoming. This went back to the state's early history. Indeed, by 1916 both women and blacks had served on juries in Wyoming, and while that went back in forth in regards to women, it did not as to blacks. Indeed at least one black juror had served on a death penalty case in Wyoming prior to 1916.

As I noted in the long second thread linked in above Wyoming was not a conservative state the way that is now, in 1916. This is something a person must approach with caution as its easy to assume too much of the opposite, and conservative and liberal in the current context isn't something that's easily to uniformly compare with conservative and "liberal" in past eras. Still, some comparison is interesting.

As I first noted in the sidebar mentioned above, a person has to consider that early in the state's history, it was the GOP that was, or could be, liberal, in context, while the Democrats were the opposite. As I noted there:

Wyoming obtained statehood in 1890. 1890 was still well within the
influence of the Civil War, and that continued to have an impact on
politics that late, and for about a decade after that. The fortunes of
the Republican Party had been somewhat solidified as a result of the
war, but that was also true for the Democrats. In a way, what
succession had attempted was reflected in the popularity of the
political parties. The GOP was very strong in the North, and the
Democratic Party dominated the South. States in the Midwest tended to
be in a state of flux. In the West, were most of the territory was just
that, territory, the GOP was by far the strongest party as a rule.

The GOP of that era, 1860s, had a strong "liberal" element in it, which
was particularly reflective of its anti slavery policy of 1860-1865.
That part of the party had grown in strength during the war, and by the
end of the war Radical Republicans, who favored a harsh Reconstruction
designed to immediately address racial issues in the South, were a
strong element in the party. They never took control of it, however.
The party also was pro business, and was in favor of governmental
assistance to business when it seemed merited. The best example of that
is probably the Transcontinental Railroad, which was backed by the
Federal Government and which was a massive expenditure in various ways.
That wasn't the only example, however. The Homestead Act, which gave
away Federal Property, which had formerly been held until turned over
completely to newly admitted states, created an official policy of
bribing emigrants with offers of land from the Federal stock of the
same. The Homestead Act was a Republican Act. The Mining Law of 1872,
which worked in a similar fashion, likewise was a Republican Act.

Republican President U. S. Grant. Two time GOP winner and hero of the Civil War.

The Democrats, in contrast, were more of a "conservative" party in some
ways, although again the distinction cannot be directly carried into
modern times. Democrats tended to favor individual "state rights" more
than Republicans did. For that reason Democrats had generally opposed
the Union effort during the Civil War, no matter where they lived.

A huge difference between the parties at that time was that the GOP had a
legacy of freeing the slaves and the Democrats had effectively been the
party of slavery. After the war, for that reason, the Democrats
remained extremely strong in the South, where they continued to promote
policies that were racist in nature. The GOP drew the support of
recently freed slaves, but it was moderate in its attempts to assist
them.

So, in short, Wyoming was a Republican state early on and as such, it fit into the middle of the road to "progressive in terms of its political leanings. This was very much the case for much of the West. There was a conservative wing of the GOP to be sure, but at that time, it was really the Democratic Party that was uniformly conservative. Republicans in the West, moreover, leaned towards the more liberal wing of the GOP.

Republicans dominated Wyoming's politics at every level right up until the Johnson County War. That event caused a disruption in Republican fortunes, although they soon recovered. Nonetheless it would be a mistake to assume that Wyomingites were unfailingly loyal to the GOP. Indeed, the extent of their progressive leanings was revealed in the next several Presidential elections in which Wyomingites uniformly went to the "left" with their vote. As noted in the thread linked in above:

This would help explain the results of the Presidential election, in
Wyoming, of the same year (1892). In that year, pro business, Bourbon
Democrat, Grover Cleveland became the only President to regain office
after having lost a bid for reelection. Cleveland was a candidate that
those leaning Republican could generally support, which explain in part
how his political fortunes revived, but he did not gain support in
Wyoming. In Wyoming, as we will see in a later entry, the state's
electorate voting for representatives to the Electoral College for the
first time, given its recent statehood, went for Populist James
Weaver.. The general election of 1892 saw four
candidates compete for electoral votes. In Wyoming, President Harrison
ended up
polling just over 50% with Populist James Weaver
taking 46% of the Wyoming vote. The remaining percentage of
the vote seemingly went to John Bidwell of the Prohibition Party.
Cleveland's percentage of the Wyoming vote was infinitesimal.

Populist candidate James B. Weaver in 1892. He took Colorado's electoral vote that year and came close to taking Wyoming's

As surprising as this is, Wyoming was not unique in these regards.
Weaver polled so well in Colorado that he pulled out ahead of Harrison
in that state and took that state's electoral votes. He also won in
Idaho, Nevada and North Dakota. Cleveland was obviously very unpopular
in the Rocky Mountain West in the 1892 election. Indeed, Cleveland only
took California and Texas in the West, and polled most strongly in the
East and the South. He polled particular well in the Deep South that
year, although Weaver also, ironically, did well in the South.
Cleveland's status as a Democrat probably carried him in the South.

This
probably is an interesting comment on both the evolution of political
parties, and the make up of the Wyoming electorate at the time. Wyoming
remained a Republican state then as now, but at that time the
Republican Party had started to split between "progressive" and
"conservative"
factions. While their fiscal policies significantly differed in
general, the Democratic party had not yet started to have a significant
populist branch, but it was already the case that its northern
candidates, like Cleveland, were more easily recognizable to northern
Republican voters than Southern Democrats were. While Weaver didn't
take any Southern state, he did however receive a large number of votes
in the deep South, however, reflecting the emergence of Populist thought
in the Southern Yeoman class.

All of this is quite remarkable in the modern context. Weaver isn't probably really directly comparable to any modern candidate, but none the less he wouldn't be a candidate that we'd expect to have done well in Wyoming, based upon its modern politics, expect perhaps in the context of his populist appeal. That populist appeal, moreover, would next lead Wyomingites to vote for a candidate which we might, perhaps, compare a bit to Bernie Sanders of our day. Indeed, continuing on:

This pattern repeated itself in the Presidential Election of 1896, in
which William Jennings Bryan took Wyoming's vote over that of Civil War
veteran William McKinley. Bryan was a radical by all accounts, and his
having gained both the Populist and the Democratic nominates reflected
that parties swing to Populist thought nationally. But Bryan was also
popular in the West, as the Wyoming vote demonstrated. Bryan took a
whopping 51% of the Wyoming vote.

William Jennings Bryan, candidate for the Democrats and Populists, and
Congressman from Nebraska. Ultimately, his career would conclude as the
misplaced Secretary of State under President Woodrow Wilson.

In the same election, the State sent former Governor Osborne to
Congress, thereby electing a Democrat to the House of Representatives.
Seemingly, this reflected a populist streak of some sort that extended
to all Federal candidates in Wyoming that year. They returned a
Republican to the Governor's office, however, in 1894, so the trend was
hardly universal in the state. And long serving, if generally
forgotten, Clarence D. Clark remained in office throughout this period.

We next get to a beloved figure, and one that is no surprise that Wyomingites loved and continue to love, even if we forget that he was, by the end of his political life, one of the most radical American politicians to ever have significant support.

The next Presidential election would see Theodore Roosevelt run for
office, and Roosevelt was a very popular President in the West. He was
also from the "progressive" branch of the Republican Party, so any
Populist elements that were headed towards being Democratic were
effectively cut off.

Republican fortunes gained during the Theodore Roosevelt Administration,
and when his hand picked successor, his Vice President William Howard
Taft ran in 1908, Wyoming demonstrated that it had lost its fondness for
William Jennings Bryan, who ran against him. Taft took 55% of the
Wyoming vote. Perhaps reflecting some residual racialism, or perhaps
recent immigration from Eastern Europe in some counties, Socialist
candidate Eugene Debs amazingly took 4.5% of the vote. Statewide,
Wyomingites seemed satisfied with Republican candidates once again.

Former Governor of the Philippines and Vice President, and future Chief
Justice of the United States Supreme Court, William Howard Taft.

Taft had the misfortune of following Roosevelt, who was a great man, but
who was still a young man, in relative terms, and who just couldn't
avoid politics. Taft basically acted as a reformist candidate, but a
somewhat moderate one, and Roosevelt, for his part, was becoming
increasingly radical. By the election of 1912, the split in the
Republican Party that this represented broke the party apart and after
Taft was nominated it actually became two parties, with the
Rooseveltians becoming the Progressive Party. The Progressive Party
would be a radical party even by today's standards, and it says
something about the politics of the time that it mounted a very serious
campaign and had nationwide support. At the same time, the Democrats
began to tack towards the Progressives themselves and pick up parts of
their platform. The transformation of the Democratic Party into a
liberal party really began with the Presidential election of 1912, and
the party by the end of the election was never again quite what it had
been, although the change would continue on for years thereafter.

We pick back up here with the entry noted above and find that in 1916, Wyoming went for a slate of Democrats. With the history provided above, this isn't too surprising.

Or is it? What does this say about the state in 1916?

Well, it was populist, which it still is. It was also "progressive", in the context of what that meant as defined by Roosevelt's Progressive Party. That is radically to the left even now, in some ways. Having said that, much of what the Democratic Party has come to stand for in recent years almost any Wyomingite of 1916 would have found to be bizarre, if not appalling. In the context of the times, it's clear that the population of the state, including the great and powerful of the state, had a concern for the "little man" and tended to favor the political and economic interest of average individuals over business. This, indeed, reflected itself in the state's laws which were generally aimed in that direction. Socially, however, the state was not radical, even though this was an era in which true radicalism was on the rise, and this too expressed itself in the state's laws.

It's often noted here that the purpose of this blog is to explore this particular era, and hence this is what we are doing with this and many other posts. I know, from prior experience, even mentioning this change in Wyoming's political orientation is upsetting to some. But Wyoming's orientation was common throughout the West at this time. It reflects the views of the founding generation of the state, and colors the culture of the time.

Lex Anteinternet?

This blog has been around since 2009. In the very first post, we asked the question: "What the heck is this blog about?"

Our answer to the question was: "The intent of this blog is to try to explore and learn a few things about the practice of law prior to the current era. That is, prior to the internet, prior to easy roads, and the like. How did it work, how regional was it, how did lawyers perceive their roles, and how were they perceived?"

We also noted: "Part of the reason for this, quite frankly, has something to do with minor research for a very slow moving book."

All of this is still true, but the focus of the blog has changed somewhat. It now focuses on the era from 1890 to 1920 in general, rather than on the law and lawyers specifically, although that may be far from obvious. It's also become the location where we comment on anything we feel moved to comment on.

We hope you'll feel moved to comment as well. While we moderate every comment, so as to weed out Spam, we greatly appreciate the comments where they are offered, and hope to see more.

Thank you for stopping in!

On This Day In Wyoming History

In addition to being the frequent blogger here, I'm also the author of On This Day In Wyoming History, a book cataloging the daily history of Wyoming. More on that book can be discovered by following the link.

I'm also the author of a number of articles that have been published by various journals, including The Wyoming Lawyer and Rural Heritage. Topics of my published articles range from legal and agricultural topics to historical topics.